Canopus
Canopus is an Imperial hive world within the Josian Reach of the Calixis Sector. It is the seat of power of Cardinal Quiro Olranna of the Josian Arch-Diocese of the Sector Synod. Once, Canopus was a haven for religious learning and scholarly study and contained many prominent members of the Ecclesiarchy. Long ago in its past, there was a great evacuation of Ministorum priests due to a bitter civil war turning the world to ashes as a great army of heretics rose up and turned upon the clerics. This is where the legend of the Calixian Saint Rybel Gorth the Watcher in the Dark comes to form, as he was aboard the ship that rescued the saints. When the ship became lost in the Warp and they began to die, he took their souls into his own at the cost of his own sanity and eventually life. Before he died, he transcribed the gathered knowledge of the scholars of Canopus, ensuring its survival. For his sacrifice, the Ecclesiarchy at the time blessed his memory and raised him to sainthood. The cyber-mastiff handlers serving in the Arbites Precinct Fortress on Canopus take pride in developing intricate customized command lists, making sure their attack patterns can’t be cracked or predicted by the agile cultists they often find themselves pursuing through the hive. The Precinct Fortress has, however, come under the unfortunate attention of the Amaranthine Syndicate and its foul xeno masters, the Slaugth. The Commander of Court there, Senior Arbitrator Reig Reigssen, a direct appointee of Lord Marshal Goreman, has fallen into dereliction of duty and borderline criminality through the outlawed doctrine of Abstractionism. Reigssen’s attempts to purge his Chamber of Judges, both from general prejudice and from their efforts to reign in his excesses with the codes of law, put many of the Precinct’s Judges in fear for their lives and the Chamber took the astonishing step of relocating itself out of the Precinct Fortress, commandeering an accretion-mining station in the system’s outer dust belts. With Arbites throughout the Precinct openly moving to take sides, Amaranthine agents managed to persuade the already-compromised Arbitor Reigssen to accept illegal help in saving himself from the retribution that would follow once reports of his crimes left the system, and caused the spectacular destruction of the station through wanton sabotage. Reigssen knows how the station was destroyed, and is terrified that some of its Judges might have survived. The Syndicate is exploiting this, offering him more and more support, eliminating other Arbites whom his paranoia paints as possible informers, helping him hide his crimes and shore up his command so that all within the system appears in order. Reigssen sees no immediate way out of his involvement with the Syndicate, but is past the point where he can rationalize his deeds away using Abstractionist platitudes. He knows that the Syndicate knows the value of such a powerful agent; he does not know what depths his new masters will eventually push him to. For its part, the Syndicate is delighted at the opportunities that a single weak link has brought it, and, with Reigssen’s reluctant help, they are starting to sniff out similar opportunities in the surrounding systems. Their fondest hope is that Reigssen will be rotated to a more central position where he will be of even more use to them---the High Precinct command at Solomon would be splendid, a position at Scintilla better still. Category:Hive Worlds Category:Josian Reach Category:Calixis Sector Category:Planets